STATION LAUNCHER^TM 1.0 BETA UPDATE GOES LIVE TOMORROW; ADDRESSES MAJOR FIXES BASED ON STATION PLAYERS FEEDBACK

During the past month, the Station Launcher^TM development team has been going at it nonstop in working to bring you a Station Launcher product that improves and simplifies your online gaming experience -  by managing all your games, updates, and downloads from one convenient place.  We're reading your feedback on the Station message boards to better understand what you've liked and what you haven't liked about the Station Launcher beta experience.  Because we're in a beta phase, your feedback provides guidance that enables us to fix problems you've identified, improve them, and ultimately helps us build the best experience possible for you. 

Tomorrow, we're releasing a Station Launcher beta update that will address several key issues that you've written about in the Station forums.  The past month of work by our team here has been focused primarily on addressing and fixing some of those major challenges encountered since the first Station Launcher beta release.

Here is a rundown of what you can expect in this update: 

• Preferences are now saved - There's a fix for a "Lost Settings" bug that was commonly reported and caused many players to lose their saved preferences.
• Improved Network Resiliency - The update enables Station Launcher to be more resilient to network fluctuations and reduces the need for players to retry file downloads.
• Improved Auto Launch behavior - When clicking on a shortcut to a game, the customer will immediately be presented with the Game Update screen for that game.  The "News" pane will also be opened automatically.  Previously, players were taken to the Game Select screen and forced to wait for 5 seconds, before being allowed to proceed.
• Game Update screen now includes "Show All Games" - There's a button on the Game Update screen that's now labeled "Show All Games," instead of "Back to Games".
• Ability for Vanguard players to enter a game with selected character - There's now an "Enter As..." support for Vanguard players; a menu on the Game Update screen allows a customer to enter the game with their character already selected.  This is also supported within EverQuest II and Star Wars Galaxies.
• Automatic Directory Location selection - When you switch to a different server version, Station Launcher will create a directory based on the name of the new server.  Previously, you had to manually choose a directory location.
• Multi-Instance Support - Players will be able use the application to play more than one instance of a game.  This does require additional setup steps and is recommended to be used only by advanced users.
• We want to know more about your Station Launcher experience  - We want to make it the best experience possible for you.  We want to know how its functionality is working for you, and understand what you think can make Station Launcher even better.  When you click on the "Station Launcher Feedback" button, you'll be taken to an online survey to share your experiences.  Be brutally honest with us.

Here are the Known Issues within Station Launcher.  We're continuing our work to resolve these: 

• Interrupted Downloads - Game updates are interrupted when you leave the Game Update screen.
• Multi-Instance Support - Additional support for this ability has not yet been added to the application, including the user interface and command-line syntax.
• Minimize from Task Bar - The application does not toggle to and from the minimize state on the Windows task bar as is common in other Windows applications.
• "Enter As" while using UK English - The "Enter As" feature - the ability to enter a game with a selected character -  is not working when the language is set to English (UK).
• Update Scanning - The scanning for files has become slower and sometimes gets "stuck", especially when quickly switching between different server versions.
• Chat Copy - One can paste into a chat session within Friends, but cannot copy selected text.

The team here wants everyone using Station Launcher beta to "keep it coming" - keep sending us your feedback and thoughts about the latest release.  Post your suggestions and comments on the board, and also leave detailed feedback through the new survey link that's available to you in Station Launcher.  Let us know if the new fixes are working for you.  If you're enjoying Station Launcher, tell your guild mates who haven't yet tried it, to try it out and let us know what they think.  All of your input enables us to improve, refine, and deliver the best Station Launcher experience for everyone.

Dan Kinney
Senior Director, Platform Client Applications
Sony Online Entertainment

The mult-instancing support is on the most basic stuff - "support" may be a little generous.  We made it so that the Launcher can deal with installations in more than one location.  You still have to log out, but at least one configuration won't stomp over another.

I'll be updating the FAQ for the details.  In the next release, we are going to add stuff to the command-line so that it gets a little easier.

When the publish is finished and you log back into the Station Launcher, it will patch itself.

 As for the error you are experiencing.  Please exit the Station Launcher completely and restart it.  This should refresh your connection and allow you to be updated with the new items deployed today.

First I wanted to say I love the Idea of Station Launcher. Right now my main reason for using it is the Friends feature. I could see myself using the game launching part as well once all the bugs are worked out.

1: My main problem with the Station launcher right now is it lists people online even though they are not. It will not always do this so it is hard to tell you exactly when or how. There is one time it seems to do it the most though. When I have a friend with more than one alt that is also on my friends list and he/she logs on all of them they will all say they are online. sometimes even after he/she logged off completely it will show them all still online. (note) this is only a problem with Vanguard.

2: sometimes they can see me sending them a tell in to EQ2 or Vanguard but I am not able to see them chat back.

Wish list

1: the ability to add notes to your friends. for an old friend this is not needed but for new people I just meet it would be of great use.  Example: who their main is, were I meet them, or what I need to pay them back for.

2: I read that you are adding guild chat. I would also like to see the ability to chat in a channel.

Launcher is looking better and better even though certain things makes it harder for me to use it.

I have EQ2 in many different places on my harddrives. Test, Beta and the Liver version.  Since they are not on my main drive they stay the same if I have to reinstall my main system HD. Normally this is not a problem because running the eq2.exe file allways installs the normal launcher in it's own folder automatically. Only annoying thing about this is that the launcher defaults to "c:\program files\sony" and does not read the localized information wich in my case is "C:\Programmer\". Not a biggy this one though manily because it really doesnt matter where my Everquest 2 is located when i start the main game file the rest happens by it self.

Now .. This is NOT the case with the station launcher beta . It seems to have alot of difficulties setting up the different games by it self . also if you move the location of a game install  the beta launcher defies gravity and continues to patch into a folder wich is no longer there or even creates the path for the old installation as it sees it in the registry.

It would be a great step forward if these problems could be avoided and a solution to it might be to allow for a manual determination of where your games are and add the posibility to change this at will. This is the MAIN reason im NOT using the beta launcher.

Next is the ingame voice system .. at some point I'm sure i read that it would be introduced to te betalauncher. Is that correct and if so when will this happen ?

Yours

Thanks for the feedback, Bromir.  It really helps.

A couple of days, I posted an entry to the FAQ about this topic: My Station Launcher is pointing to the wrong location for my game.  How do I change it? (http://forums.station.sony.com/stat..._id=11500011140).

We need to make this MUCH easier.  In general, you can scan or manually browse for a game directory if you want to put it in a different location than the default.

Do you play with multiple login accounts at the same time?  If not, this should help you clean this up.

Do you also play with the older LaunchPad? There may be some more work to clean things up for that as well.

-dan

DanKinney wrote:

Thanks for the feedback, Bromir.  It really helps.

A couple of days, I posted an entry to the FAQ about this topic: My Station Launcher is pointing to the wrong location for my game.  How do I change it? (http://forums.station.sony.com/stat..._id=11500011140).

We need to make this MUCH easier.  In general, you can scan or manually browse for a game directory if you want to put it in a different location than the default.

Do you play with multiple login accounts at the same time?  If not, this should help you clean this up.

Do you also play with the older LaunchPad? There may be some more work to clean things up for that as well.

-dan

Not the multiple login scenario you have here. My accounts run on two seperate comps standing next to eachother .

Now ..

to quote the FaQ:

"1) Open the preferences for the game (Using EverQuest for this example).  Click on the "Remove Game" button (NOTE: This will not remove any game files - it just removes it from the Station Launcher's knowledge)."

This button I havent touched mainly because of the name "remove game" A more descriptive name would be lighter on the mind i think .. Like "Change gamelocation" or "remove listing from launcher" or something like that . I could be a nice thing To manage all the games from the one screen or from anyone screen like the main game selection. I'm a pretty good tech but when im in doubt of the wording I have learned to stay away to avoid disasters sometime . With this in mind a localization of the launcher might be really nice. I did however try your suggested method and it did work even though abit troublesome ..

Also another thing that bugs me is that the Beta launcher just cant seem to get my game expansions right . Even tough i have bought every single one for EverQuest 2 It just refuses to show the correct number of expansions

And then theres the voice thing you gently manouvered around answering that will it be implemented in the beta launcher ?

Yours

We are changing the name on the button soon.  It needs to be less "troublesome" - fewer steps and more clear.

The expansions count is a constant source of conversation - it depends on the definition of an expansion.  We are working to get this cleared up in the future.

I am being sly about the voice feature - it is being worked on and you will start to hear more about it soon.  I am balancing it with the need to improve the basic functionality and usability of the application.

-dan

“Inactive” Characters – A large number of players have reported that the Friends network contains characters that have long been abandoned. While we’re working with the game teams to purge these from our databases, we’ve also enabled the client to mark a character as “Inactive”. An inactive character will not be logged into the Friends network nor will it be displayed on the Friends panel. This can be controlled on the “Preferences” dialog, under the “Friends Privacy” category.

This option is nice, but only allows 4 chars to be toggled. When I started2 weeks ago, I tried a lot ofraces & classes in EQ2 till I found what I wanted to make.

My total char list is now around 10 big, but only the last one is actually active, and that one can't be reached to toggle at all

Can't edit my previous post...

Join Friend in Game – When you find one of your friends is online in a particular game, you can select “Join [friend] in [game]”. This action will launch that game with the appropriate character/server selected.

Good option, but I can't find the EQ2 server Nagafen in the list...

I was also wondering if this option keeps track of the in-game (opposing?) faction the player I want to add...